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New Friends: A History of Drake's Co-Signs

When Drake raps "Started from the bottom/Now my whole team's fucking here," we can assume that it's beyond OVO, it's beyond Toronto, and it's beyond YMCMB. He's got his own crew but his powerful co-sign hasn't gone unnoticed since the early days of his career. After self-releasing Room for Improvement in 2006, he dropped Comeback Season the next year. Within the same year, his co-sign of up-and-coming artists like Kid Cudi solidifed his phenomenal and eccentric taste in music, while bolstering the careers of others.

Over the past six years, his collaborations and co-signs have thrown unknown artists into the spotlight—The Weeknd, anyone?—and given props to stars outside of the R&B/hip-hop genres, too. When he dropped a remix to "Little Bit," Drake put rap fans who otherwise might have never heard of Lykke Li on to her music. Drizzy's got that effect on who he chooses to support. While he's created relationships and voiced support for artists like Justin Bieber, Little Dragon, Lykke Li, SBTRKT, Florence & The Machine, they were established artists even before his approval. However, acts like Future, YC, Chief Keef, and The Weeknd all got a boost from Drizzy's co-sign.

On Sunday night, the latest OVO affiliated artist PARTYNEXTDOOR dropped "Make A Mil," and with the support of a few Tweets from Drizzy, the track was featured on nearly every music blog. While there's no official word that he's signed to OVO, we knew we'd seen Drake do this before. Here's a History of Drake's Co-Signs, and it just proves that he's always been about new friends, regardless of the latest DJ Khaled track.

Written by Lauren Nostro (@LAURENcynthia) and Alysa Lechner (@hialysa)